Chapter 24 Phylogenetic Reconstruction #2
Behind her, Andreas scowled and said, “I will be in the other room if you need me.”
Tara called after him, “What if I need you?”
Without missing a beat, Andreas replied, “Do not bother me unless Samantha needs me.”
Tara cackled, flopped down on the bed near my feet, and handed over the sandwich. “He loves you so much it makes my teeth hurt.”
“Thank you for the sandwich, but I just ate,” I said. “I’ll save this for later.”
She waved it off. “No problem. I’ll bring you contraband anytime. How are you feeling?”
“I feel great.”
She squinted at my face, then at my ribs, as if assessing whether to believe me. “Your face does look normal. How are the ribs?”
“Almost healed.” I’d only needed real painkillers the first week, and the rest had been the slow ache of healing. Compared to grad school, it was a vacation.
Tara leaned back, bracing herself with her hands. “I heard you were discharged from the hospital in, like, record time.”
I nodded. “I’m a model patient, apparently. But they wouldn’t let me go unless I agreed to take time off work. I’ve spent this whole time reading novels. Why are fictional people so much more frustrating than real people?”
Tara grinned. “Dmitry sends his regards, along with several complaints about changes to the lab schedule. I guess you’re not missing much at work.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but I actually miss the lab drama. And I miss my dissertation. And I miss being a real person and not a doll stuck on a bed of soft cotton.”
She patted my leg, careful not to jostle anything. “Has your friend Kaitlyn been by today?”
I smiled. “Yes. She brought Joey this morning.”
“Baby snuggles will fix you right up.”
Kaitlyn was, as always, a bright spot. She’d come to see me every single day in the hospital, and now that I was home, she visited with Joey in tow, sometimes with Martin, sometimes not.
Andreas always enjoyed both Joey and Kaitlyn.
With Martin, however, Andreas had been frosty at best, and downright rude if the mood stuck him.
I suspected Andreas was still angry at Martin for sending me to Henrik alone, and the only thing keeping him from voicing that anger was my presence.
Tara glanced at the sandwich, then at me. “Any news on Henrik? How did the arraignment go? Wait, didn’t he already have an arraignment? Or whatever his latest court date was—how did that go?”
I tried to sit with my legs crisscross and almost managed. “He was denied bail since he was determined to be a flight risk.”
Henrik had been hit with a rapid-fire series of charges: assault and battery, multiple counts of kidnapping, one count of attempted murder, etcetera, etcetera.
Due to the recording I’d handed over, his assets had been frozen and he was essentially broke.
I’d been told he’d tried to call Tobias for help, but Tobias had gone radio silent.
“They say the legal situation with Henrik is all in limbo and may take several years to sort out.”
“How do you feel about that?” Tara asked, sounding genuinely curious.
I shrugged. “As long as he’s behind bars for the death of my father, and for framing him, I’m fine with it. It takes as long as it takes.”
What I didn’t say was that the situation with Henrik might never bring full closure.
Henrik had already claimed sole responsibility for my father’s death and, despite repeated interrogations, refused to implicate his father.
He was stubborn, convinced that as long as he kept Oskar’s hands clean, Henrik would one day somehow have access to my father’s shares.
Again, there is no reasoning with someone who has no logic or intelligence.
I was working with my therapist to accept the possibility that the whole, true story of the past might never come out. I hated uncertainty, but I was trying to live with it.
“What about the other brother? Any news from that guy?” Tara asked, as if reading my mind.
I propped myself up straighter. “You mean Tobias? It looks like he didn’t have anything to do with what happened to my father. He took the money Andreas paid him for the shares and has disappeared, more or less.”
Tara grinned. “Is that good?”
“Very good. I hope I never see him again.”
She cracked her knuckles. “Well, if I see him trying to approach you, I’ll make sure he disappears.”
I laughed, then winced. “Ouch.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And you were just saying you feel great.”
I made a face. “It aches only sometimes.”
Tara stood, stretching. “You need more rest. Stop trying to rush back to work. Take the time off.”
I eyed her. “Are you leaving already?”
“I have a class to teach tonight. When you’re all healed up, I expect to see you there.”
I smiled. “You got it.”
Backing out of the room, she waved. “See you later.”
“Bye, Tara,” I said, then watched as she loped out of sight.
Andreas waited until the apartment was silent again before coming into the bedroom. He moved quietly, but there was nothing subtle about the way he crossed to the bed and sat near my knees.
Looking at me with a softness that still startled me, he plucked my fingers from the bed and began toying with them. “Do you want to watch a movie tonight?” Since the hospital, Andreas had developed an affinity for playing with my fingers.
“I have something else in mind,” I said, and removed my fingers from his grip.
Reaching forward, I drew a line down the front of his shirt.
He caught my hand before I could get very far and I suppressed a groan of frustration.
He was always turning me down these days.
It wasn’t like I was proposing a crazy position or anything.
I just wanted to see a bit of skin. His skin. And by “a bit” I meant all of it.
Letting my chin drop to my chest, I sighed sadly. “Never mind. I guess, go turn on Mister Rogers’ for me, Dad.”
Andreas made a strangled laughing sound, but then simply outright laughed. “You are very bad,” he said, his voice was full of affection.
Pouting, I lifted my head and stuck out my lower lip.
Eyes snagging on my bottom lip, Andreas suddenly leaned in and bit it softly, as though unable to help himself, which shocked the hell out of me. After a month of chaste hovering, censuring glares, this was something new. And welcomed.
When he pulled back, I said, “That’s more like it.”
He laughed quietly, his green eyes half lidded but bright. “Your grandfather should be calling soon. I am not going to start something we cannot finish before his call.”
I sucked in a breath, not out of disappointment but out of hope. “After the call, then. Promise me we’ll do something fun after the call.”
He took my hand and kissed the back of it, his eyes never leaving mine. “After the call, I will do whatever you want me to do . . . wherever you want me to do it.”
I didn’t know what had suddenly gotten into Andreas, but I approved. Perhaps it was the conclusion of my hundred apologies. I would’ve said a hundred more if he’d let me.
Admittedly, I’d never been good at having good things. Sometimes, I found myself waiting for the other shoe to drop with Andreas. Every day it didn’t, I felt a little less nervous and a little more certain.
I wanted to tell him this, but the words were clumsy in my mouth. Instead, I squeezed his hand, looked him in the eye, and said, “I’m so eternally grateful I have you.”
He smiled, slow and real, his gaze lowering to my mouth and warming. “I am glad I have you, too.”
The phone on the nightstand buzzed, interrupting our moment, and I exhaled at the imperfect timing. Nevertheless, I picked it up, saw the caller ID: “GRANDPA CARL.”
Bracing myself, I answered, “Hi, Grandpa.”
“Sammy! Just checking in. I hear from your boyfriend that you’re feeling better.” He sounded happy to hear my voice.
Andreas’s smile grew infinitesimally bigger at the word boyfriend while he kept hold of my hand.
“I am,” I said. “Thanks for calling.”
We talked for a few minutes, mostly about the paperwork for the adoption, which was moving forward quickly. I couldn’t wait to not be Andreas’s adopted child. But I also couldn’t wait to legally be part of my family again.
After we hung up, I set the phone aside and studied Andreas, wondering if he’d keep his word.
“All done.”
“Does this mean I can have you now?” He grinned, glancing up at me, the heat behind his gaze making my heart flutter and my chest tight. My, oh my, how I missed that heat.
Using his hold on my hand as leverage, I pulled him closer, wanting at least a kiss. Just one kiss. But first, I pressed my face to his neck, inhaled the clean, warm scent of him, and let the future unspool in my head.
There were still things to finish and resolve.
Whether Dr. Hauser would continue as the proxy for the shares once the civil suit was eventually overturned; how to hand the shares over to the Genetix employees when the time came; Henrik’s trial; my dissertation and future at the university; whether I needed guards when I returned to work or not; my sleepwalking; Andreas’s Genetix shares; the physical therapy; the endless, looming question of who I was supposed to be now that I was free of both the Kristiansen legacy and the burden of my parents’ secrets.
But in this moment, all of that could wait.
I was exactly where I wanted to be, next to exactly the person I wanted to be with.
Miraculously, I didn’t feel fear or unease when I thought about a future with Andreas.
He was the most loveable hovering boyfriend.
And he was also the sneakiest partner I could ever conceive of, or wish for, or wake up next to.
Andreas wasn’t just a good thing. He was the best thing. And I hoped our future was one of commitment, and expectations, and all sorts of strings.